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Membership to the New Jersey State Bar Association is free for students! That’s a price that can’t be beat.

So, what is the value?

For one, despite the fact that it’s only October, many of you are starting to think about what you will be doing next summer (i.e. where will you be working). Membership in the NJSBA gives you access to the thousands of other members, which includes both Rutgers and non-Rutgers alumni, among other valuable resources.

One of those resources is Fastcase, a legal database used by many practitioners. Membership with the NJSBA gives you access to the New Jersey Law Libraries on Fastcase. (A small annual fee gives you access to all Fastcase Law Libraries.) The Fastcase system is best known for their search results: search results are highly relevant and also offered on an interactive timeline to better picture the relevancy of each result. For students and faculty interested in learning more about Fastcase, a representative will be on campus on Thursday, November 19 to offer a demonstration of this system. (This event will also be open to members of the NJ Bar, so it will be an excellent networking opportunity for students!)

Additionally, your membership entitles you to the NJSBA’s Daily Briefing. This email push-service provides you with the previous days’ news summaries and decision summaries, both published and unpublished.

Totally worth it. Go ahead and get signed up.

(P.S. if you want to get started using Fastcase without a membership to the NJSBA, visit our A-Z List of Research Databases, click on Fastcase and you’re in! Enjoy!)

Now that you’re a few weeks in to this new academic year, and with a long weekend ahead, it’s time to talk study guides and treatises. These supplements can be extremely helpful when it comes to understanding your course materials. These materials can explain the law, often with more detail than provided by a casebook. (Note: they are not a substitute for doing your assigned reading.)

By all means, search the catalog to find the precise study guide you seek. But most of you may not know the exact title or author of a study guide or treatise that you think might be helpful. Should that be the case, use the Law Library’s guide to Guides by Subject. This guide lists over 60 subject areas. By expanding the subject area of your choosing, you will see links to subject-specific resources, which can include study guides and treatises both in the law library and available online, and links to other guides.

What you saw and what you know: This (new) institution was formed by the merging of Rutgers Schools of Law in Camden and Newark.

What you didn’t see and what you may not know: the task of merging was taken on by the law libraries of each individual institution, as well, to form one unified law library and catalog.

What does that mean for our patrons? More resources!

That’s right, the merging of the law school libraries enables greater sharing of resources between the Camden and Newark campuses. Members of the law school community will be able to view the holdings of both libraries, and even check out those resources, through the unified catalog. Members of the Camden community who would like an item that lives in the Newark Law Library location should simply place a “Hold” on the item while logged in to the system. Please note that the “Hold” feature only applies to generally circulating materials. Users will be notified by the system if their hold request cannot be processed.

Sharing of resources is not limited to books and library materials, however; members of the Camden campus are encouraged to reach out to Newark librarians with any questions that arise.

The Law Library would like to take a minute to welcome you to Rutgers School of Law in Camden. Whether you are new to campus or would just like to get reacquainted with the Law Library, we would like to invite you to come in for a tour. We can point you towards research materials, study carrels and tables, and printers and scanners on different floors of the library. We can even show you how to reserve study rooms online. You can find information regarding all of our Student Services within the law school intranet, at the end of the Academic Information section.

The library has a fantastic selection of resources, both online and in print, at your disposal. From the Law Library’s main page, you can find a link to databases that might be very helpful to you.

Regular library hours are posted on the library home page. Any changes to library hours will be noted on the home page, with a link to those hours on the library’s Hours page. Changes to library hours will also be posted near the entrance to the law library.

The start of the 2015 academic year is met with some new and exciting developments. We also encourage you to follow our blog so that you can stay up-to-date with this news, ranging from Law School or Law Library announcements or happenings, research-related posts, and anything that may be of interest to our audience. We also encourage you to contact us if you have any suggestions for content that may be useful or of interest to you! You can also follow the blog through our Twitter feed (@RutgrsCamLawLib) or by “Liking” us on Facebook (Rutgers-Camden Law Library).

The Law Library is hosting a Scavenger Hunt! The game is intended to be a fun way to learn about your library and legal research! The hunt consists of 10 questions that will help familiarize you with the layout of the library along with some available resources and services. Prizes will be awarded for the first 3 participants to answer the most questions correctly.

These prizes are being offered:

1st place: $50 gift card to the campus bookstore

2nd place: $25 gift card to Starbucks

3rd place: $10 gift card to Starbucks

ALL participants will receive a coupon for 50 LexisNexis points!

The questions will be available from the Reference Desk throughout the duration of the contest, and are also available from the Library homepage. Participants are encouraged to stop by the Reference Desk to chat with one of the librarians!

All entries must be submitted electronically to the Reference Department email: lawlib@camden.rutgers.edu by 11:59pm on Friday, August 28, 2015 to be considered to a prize.

With the end of the 2014-15 academic year comes the end of an era. In May, long-time library director, Anne Dalesandro, announced that she:

will be stepping down from the library directorship on June 30th and will begin a six-month research leave. My official retirement date will be at the end of this year. But I will still be around figuring out what emeritus librarians do and continuing to work on several library projects on a volunteer basis.

Anne’s history with the law school began long before her appointment as the director. Anne began as a law student at Rutgers School of Law-Camden, graduating in 1975. She followed this degree with one in library sciences from Rutgers School of Library and Information Sciences, in the meantime joining the law library staff in 1976. Anne worked in the library as a legal research specialist and head of public services until 1992, when she was appointed the interim library director, and officially became the library director in 1993. Anne proudly served the needs of the law school through her unwavering service as the library director for more than two decades.

Dedicated to faculty services, Anne conscientiously accommodated faculty suggestions and requests to strengthen the library’s collection and library services to law faculty, respectively. Likewise, Anne was constantly thinking about the students and found countless ways of soliciting feedback in order to make the library a more welcoming and supportive place for each successive generation of students.

Stepping into the role of the new director for the, now, merged Rutgers University Law School Library, is John Joergensen. Beginning in 1996, John was a reference librarian and the head of circulation here in Camden before becoming director of the Newark Law Library in 2012. Here’s a little bit about John, from his faculty profile page:

During his tenure at Rutgers–Camden, Professor Joergensen organized the New Jersey Courtweb Project, which provides free Internet access to the full text of the decisions of the New Jersey Supreme Court and appellate courts, Tax Court, administrative law decisions, U.S. District Court of the District of New Jersey decisions, and the New Jersey Supreme Court’s Ethics Committee opinions. His work also included digitizing U.S. congressional documents, the deliberations of state Constitutional Conventions, and other historical records. In 2007 he received the Public Access to Government Information Award from the American Association of Law Libraries and in 2011 was named to the Fastcase 50 as one of the country’s “most interesting and provocative leaders in the combined fields of law, scholarship and technology.”

John will be managing the resources and staff of both the Newark and Camden library locations.